Keeping the Promise
by ChildlikeEmpress
Summary: The longer behind the scenes version of Don't Forget the Roses. This hopefully explains things. Read and Review!
1. Part I

"Keeping the Promise"

Part I

By ChildlikeEmpress

"Colin! Colin where are you?" Mary Lennox clattered down the Misselthwaite staircase in a hurry, taking care not to slip and clutching her favorite skipping rope in her hands.

For the first time in what seemed like eons, (though it truly was only a few days) this side of England wasn't pouring rain, which was a good thing, because Mary thought she'd burst with impatience if she didn't get to check and see if the roses were blooming.

"Any day now Miss Mary, you munnot fret, the roses will bloom for you soon, I promise it." Mary blushed as she remembered Dickon's words, then she frowned at her self. It seemed like anything Dickon said made her blush which was actually a rather uncomfortable thing to happen. Mary didn't like things happening without explanation and her frequent blushes were happening quite frequently.

Mary paused in her steps. "Must be the bloody corset." Was her final thought as she reached the door to Colin's room.

If you were to have looked in Colin's room on that day, you would have seen Mary quite contrary tapping her foot impatiently, her long hair loose and her skirts lengthened considerably since she first stepped foot in Misselthwaite. At fourteen, Mary was nearly a lady as Mrs. Medlock proclaimed grimly, and wasn't it high time she have a corset? Frittering around in just her blouse and skirt would be scandalous!

Mary fidgeted, knocked once more, and with a mighty proclamation, "Colin I'm coming in!" yanked the door open to find-

A red-faced Colin trying in vain to tuck his shirt back in, looking very much like he had been in the middle of something…

"Colin!" Mary's eye immediately looked underneath his bed, and sure enough saw a foot sticking out from beneath. Quick as a blink Mary was yanking on said foot and dragging out a screeching scullery maid by the name of Kitty.

"Save me Master Colin! Save me!" was Kitty's sniffled mantra as Mary shoved her roughly out the door with promised retribution in the form of Mrs. Medlock.

"Good Lord Mary! Can't a chap have a bit of fun? I'm off to school soon, and here you are beating on the maids with no regard whatsoever to my authority."

"Authority?" Mary answered. "All I see here is you dithering around with the maids, which I find disgusting. Uncle Archie would be appalled, and I've got half a mind to tell him."

"You wouldn't dare!"

And so Mary's visit to her cousin ended in the usual screaming match, leaving Colin pouting and Mary incensed.

"And what makes me the most mad is that he's right! I can't tell Uncle Archie, it would make him so sad!" Mary had just finished a retelling of this morning's events to Dickon and was at the moment ravaging a particular patch of weeds with a vengeance.

Dickon looked up at Mary, pausing from his work of pruning. "I'm really not that surprised Miss Mary, Colin be tha' master of the house. It's not that uncommon a thing, for men of his station."

Mary looked over at him, if possible even more upset. "But that's horrid! What if he gets married, will he keep on at it?"

"May'aps." Dickon looked away, focusing on pulling a caterpillar off a dill plant.

"You'd never do that would you Dickon?" The question coming from a suddenly subdued Mary startled Dickon out of his reverie.

"What did you say Miss Mary?"

Mary lowered her eyes. It seemed that since Dickon turned sixteen, he was drifting away. Not as noticeably as with Colin, but still. If possible Dickon had gotten even dreamier in his teen years then he was as a child, and sometimes, sometimes he would stare at her in such a way that Mary could swear that he could see her soul, and was looking at it intensely…

"Miss Mary?"

"Mary?"

Mary's head jerked up, eyes wide at Dickon's sudden omission. She wasn't sure if him leaving off the 'Miss' made her happy or mad. But she didn't care right now, because he was giving her that look again..

"Yes Dickon?"

Now that Dickon had her attention, he suddenly felt self-conscious, but she had asked him..

"Miss Mary, I think, that if two people love one a'nother, then, they shouldn't have to do that. And if t'were someone I loved, I would never do that, it'd be too cruel."

Mary smiled at him. "I'm glad."

And it was in that moment, sitting with Mary in the garden that Dickon's mind thought the unthinkable.

'I love her.'


	2. Part II

"Keeping the Promise"

Part II

By ChildlikeEmpress

"Move Martha, you're not pulling hard enough." Mrs. Medlock bustled over and Mary rolled her eyes and planted her feet firmly and gripped the bedpost. At least when Martha laced her corset she could still breathe a little bit.

"Sorry ma'am." Martha handed Medlock the laces with an apologetic look towards Mary.

"No time to be sorry Martha, get Mary's breakfast. Mary, hold your breath."

Mary grimaced as Mrs. Medlock finished tying her stays. "What's all the fuss about this morning?" Mrs. Medlock frowned. "You're uncle wishes to speak with you, and by all things right in the world you won't be going to speak to him looking like a ragamuffin."

Thus Mary found herself standing inside Archibald Craven's study, and if she already hadn't been pale from the corset, she would have turned white from what she was hearing.

"I believe it is time for you to go to school Mary," her uncle finally said. "What?" Mary replied, feeling sick to her stomach at the mere thought. "But I thought I was finished, that's what Miss Crowe told me!" Mary thought back on her former governess. Miss Crowe was actually a kind individual, who taught Mary the skills necessary to a young lady, while not begrudging her some time outside in the fresh air. Mary had been happy with Miss Crowe as her teacher, she never thought that she'd have to go to a school afterwards.

Archibald Craven frowned slightly at Mary's impertinence. In the past Mary's temper had been far more controlled, but now it looked as though she would start screaming any minute.

"Your behavior right now has proven to me that you need further "finishing" as you call it. Frankly Mary I'm surprised, most young girl's your age are scandalously neglected in the subject of education. I thought you would be happy to go to school in London."

"London?" Mary shrieked. "I'm sorry but I won't go! I don't want to Uncle, please don't force me- "That's enough!" Lord Craven stood up as fast as his aching body allowed. "I won't be around much longer, the sooner you finish your schooling the sooner you can be married!"

"To who? Why am I only hearing of this now?" Mary now looked more frightened than angry, praying to God that it wasn't who her uncle said it would be…

"To Colin!"

The silence was deafening. It was as if everyone had dropped dead and was six-feet under.

"No." Was Mary's horrified whisper, as she turned and ran from the study.

She went to look for the only person she wanted to see, only he wasn't there.

Mary wandered through the Garden forlornly, looking for a sign that Dickon had even been there today. There was none. No spilt dirt, no garden tools lying around.

It was as if no one had been in the Garden since yesterday.

'Most likely true' Mary thought.

She paused in front of the swing. "How long has it been?" she whispered.

Her mind flashed back to the day Colin brought his camera, and she and Dickon had sat here on this swing, smiling at each other as if they knew something no one else did.

Mary remembered how upset Colin had been, and it had been his idea in the first place too.

Marry Colin? Thinking about it made her sick.

If only things were different, if Dickon was-no. Better not think about that.

She sat down in the swing, her anger fueling her desire to feel free like the Robin, to fly away from it all. 'Well,' she thought ruefully. Humans can't fly, but oh how I wish..' She pushed off the ground to get a good start, then began to move her legs back and forth picking up momentum….

Why is it she'd never tried this before? It was so freeing, she almost could pretend she was flying. There was the top of the Garden wall, she could see Ben Weatherstaff pruning in the adjoining garden. There he was on top of the ladder.

Mary was glad he was looking the other way, who knows how much her skirts were flapping about! It was hardly decent.

Is this how you felt Aunt Lilias? Is this why you loved this swing so much? Mary swung back and forth in high dizzying arcs, keeping her self from looking down…it was a long ways to the ground…

Even so, it was surprising when she suddenly felt her world tilt as her hand seemed to be grasping nothing but air, why wasn't the rope attached to the tree any longer? The feeling of weightlessness she had felt before vanished with a snap, as she felt her self plummeting to the ground below…and as she twisted and writhed in her fall, the last conscious thought of Mary Lennox was of the Hindustani lullaby her Aaya would sing to her just before she fell asleep…

Ben Weatherstaff looked up from the hedge he was trimming just in time to hear the sound of bones crunching as they hit the ground. His rheumy eyes focused long enough to see the rumpled skirts sprawled where they lay, and the swing that dangled by only one strand of rope. His heart started beating erratically, and he clutched his chest before sliding down to the ground and screaming wordlessly for help.

Dickon started to run towards the form of his mentor. He dropped the spade and rake he had with him as he bent over the elderly gardener. "Mr. Weatherstaff, what is it that pains tha?"

"Go! Leave me here you silly boy, can't you see? Lilias has fallen!"

"Lilias?" "You mean Colin's mother, she's…" Dickon felt something twist inside his chest and a feeling of dread as he rose and started to walk towards the garden door.

He pushed it open, looking for any sign that she had been there…was there. He gradually quickened his pace as his search so far proved fruitless, until….

He stood over Mary, staring at her beautiful face, still beautiful, even though her neck was crooked at an impossible angle, and blood was dripping from her once rosy lips.

Her limbs were sprawled out, and her right palm was bleeding, he could see the rope fibers sticking to her skin where she had held on while falling. Nothing seemed to register until he heard a familiar creak, and he saw the broken swing, swaying gently in the breeze, mocking him…. mocking him………..

And then he started screaming.

Mrs. Medlock was inconsolable. She couldn't stop crying. Martha was the same.

Ben Weatherstaff was carried to his bed, but died before a doctor could be called.

Lord Craven left Misselthwaite after the funeral. He went to Europe. He fooled himself into thinking he would be back, that he would forget. He fooled himself.

Colin continued his activities with Kitty, until her mysterious disappearance. He then married New York Socialite Irene Vanderbilt.

Dickon took an axe to the evidence of his failures. But when he went to burn the swing's remains he found he couldn't do it. They sit in a pile by the clogged up fountain where the fish have long since died. Dickon didn't come to the garden anymore, except for once a year, because of a foolish promise he made when he was young.

"What was the promise?" Moira Sowerby looked up at her Great-uncle Richard. They had been sitting in the cottage for the better part of the day, he because he was too old to leave it, and she because she was too young to know better than to stay.

The fire crackled and hissed in the hearth as Moira waited for the answer. Her mommy had said that Great-uncle Richard was "rather strange". He wasn't the same she said, 'something happened to him when he was young and then he up and left to fight in the war.' Moira looked up at the old man, his face a patchwork of wrinkles, his knarly hands that resembled claws…yet she was not afraid. Because her mother had also said: 'he used to talk to the animals, and the animals would talk back!'

"Great-uncle Richard? Is it true you talked to animals?"

The old man jerked as he heard a whispered voice repeat the question in his mind…

"_Martha says you talk to animals…is it true?"_

"_Like a snake charmer in India."_

"_Dickon…when I die, will you take care of the roses for me? Like Ben does for Colin's mother?"_

"_I hope tha wasn't planning on dying like she did Miss Mary."_

"_Dickon! You silly goose! Of course not! But, just the same…Don't forget the roses…"_

"_I willna, I promise."_

The old man looked at this Grand-niece and answered her.

"I did…once."

"So it's true then!" Moira's smile widened in delight, as she scrambled up to plant a kiss on his withered cheek. She then skipped off, to do whatever six-year old girl child's do, and left Dickon sitting by the fire.

"Dickon…don't forget…" 

"I won't Miss Mary, I promised."

He then got up from the rocker where he had been sitting for who knows how long, and made his way slowly towards the door, clutching his cane.

Whether or not, dear readers he reached the garden, or not, is up to you to decide.

But most certainly you can suppose, that if he did, he would take out an old boyish pocketknife and test the branches to see if they were still "wick."

End


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